Armed Forces' Fighting Strength

Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the fighting strength of the (a) British Army, (b) Royal Navy and (c) Royal Air Force has been in each year since 1992.

Don Touhig: The following table shows the full-time trained strength of UK armed forces at 1 April points since 1992, which includes trained UK regular forces, trained Gurkhas and FTRS (full-time reserve service) personnel. They do not include the Home Service battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment, mobilised reservists or Activated Reservists.
	
		
			  Naval Service(8) Army Royal Air Force 
		
		
			 1992 55,930 140,630 81,970 
			 1993 55,280 132,940 78,860 
			 1994 52,410 121,760 74,210 
			 1995 48,200 108,700 69,430 
			 1996 45,550 103,560 62,510 
			 1997 41,680 101,360 54,200 
			 1998 40,480 100,880 52,680 
			 1999(9) 39,320 99,900 51,910 
			 2000 38,880 100,330 51,210 
			 2001 38,540 3,4,5100,560 50,110 
			 2002 37,490 4,5100,390 49,200 
			 2003 37,600 4,5102,010 48,900 
			 2004 37,470 4,5103,560 49,120 
			 2005 36,320 102,440 49,210 
		
	
	(8) Naval Service includes Royal Navy and Marines.
	(9) FTRS were created by the Reserve Forces Act 1996 and none existed before late 1997 and were formally recorded from late 1998 only.
	(10) 1 April 2001 Army FTRS Officer figures are not available, data are for 1 March 2001.
	(11) The Army Officer FTRS strength figures supplied to DASA between April 2001 and October 2004 are currently under review. Figures contained in this table have been supplied by the Army Personnel Centre and should be considered as provisional.
	(12) provisional
	Note:
	All figures have been rounded to the nearest 10. When rounding to the nearest 10, numbers ending in 5 have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias.